The Experiment
by Madeleine Van Helsing
Summary: JohnLock: Sherlock is left alone with his thoughts, and begins to see John in a very different light.


The Experiment

"John?" Sherlock stared deep into the thick, heavy darkness that was the night sky, and called to his friend. There was no answer.  
"John!" A little louder this time, but still nothing. Sherlock closed his eyes, and turned away from the window. John was out. He'd forgotten. He was staying at Josephine's house. They were only together because she was a romantic, otherwise, she was terrible. Sherlock hated her. She didn't read or write or sing or dance or play music. She only did hair styling and nail painting.  
Sherlock opened his eyes again, watching the door hopefully. Nobody walked through it.  
"John..." It was hardly a shout. Only just a whisper, really. He sighed.  
"I'll get it myself then." He reached into his pocket, fishing out his mobile phone. Sitting down on the sofa, he began searching for a good case. A murder or something. Anything to stop his head spinning.  
The drawer in which he kept his gun became all too appealing. He scrolled through cases, so fast they became a blur on the screen, and tried his best to keep his thoughts away from that drawer.  
He needed John. John would stop his boredom. He always thought of something.  
"Mrs. Hudson!" She was asleep. He tapped his phone impatiently on the coffee table.  
"Bored..." He scrolled through his contacts.  
'_Bored. – SH_' But John didn't return the text. Sherlock delved deep into his Mind Palace, thinking hard on anything and everything he could besides his absolute boredom. It didn't work. He tried writing, composing music, playing his violin, pacing the room. But he was still bored stiff. He went back to bed for the hundredth time, falling onto his back and staring at the ceiling. He couldn't sleep, and he was still bored. He texted John again.  
'_Still bored. – SH_' Still no reply.  
"Answer, for god's sake. I'm bored out of my mind and you just sleep!" He called him instead. It went straight to answer-phone. Sherlock decided to go for a walk.

He changed back into his day clothes, and slunk out into the night, as silent as a cat, and as cautious as a man with many death-threats (which he was). He walked round the block several times, but unable to get free of the all-consuming peace which was the cold and whispering night, he turned and started home.  
"I'm bored." When everyone is asleep, and you are alone in a dark, empty city street, something within you says silence is the thing to be, so you can imagine how Sherlock's words were just breath on the wind, forming mist before his freezing face and slipping away into the suffocating blackness of long, shivering shadows. He wandered back to Backer Street, and re-entered 221B with an uncharacteristic attempt to keep quiet. Once in his room, he tumbled under his sheets again, shaking with hatred for such an insignificant thing as serenity.  
"_Bored,_" he shouted into his pillow.  
The kitchen and his wild experiments kept him company for a few hours, then the wall acquired a few bullet holes, but overall he was still drowning in deep, soft ennui. How distracting. He tried to concentrate on anything he could find that would help him sleep, but he had nothing. Nor did Mrs. Hudson. But what of John? He thought hard about things he's seen and things he's heard over the past few days. There. John, with all the stress of domestic fails, found it hard to sleep too, and therefore had bought himself some sleeping pills. It took less than a minute for Sherlock to locate them. He checked the label, for health's sake.  
'_Take one for three hours, take two for six hours._' Sherlock took two, and went to bed.  
"Bored," he mumbled drearily to himself as his consciousness slid away. He slept until nine in the morning.

"John..." It was automatic for him to say it, since he was half asleep and could hear two pairs of footfalls in the living room. One of them was John, but the other Sherlock would rather not think about. He recognised the pattern all too well. He let his eyes flicker open, reluctant to wake up, full aware of the solitude which awaited him. As his eyes got used to the light, and his blurred vision cleared moderately, the shapes and details of his surroundings became easier to identify. John stood over him, looking upset and slightly angry.  
"Hello," he murmured.  
"What's wrong?" His voice was muffled by the covers. An emotion Sherlock couldn't quite work out passed briefly over his flat-mate's eyes. But it passed in less than a second, and John pointed huffily over to the door. Sherlock didn't want to look. He knew what he'd see. But he did, if only to please John.  
"Hello brother," said Mycroft. Sherlock just grunted.  
"He says he's here to '_talk'_ with you," John explained. Then;  
"You've been rooting through my stuff."  
"Is there tea?" replied the detective causing him to be dragged from his bed into the sting of cold morning air.  
It took two minutes for them to arrange themselves on the sofa in the living room with John pinning down Sherlock so Mycroft could try to convince him to take his place at their parent's anniversary party. Of course, Sherlock refused. Mycroft had promised he'd go, and he disserved it after getting him up at the ridiculous hour of... What _was_ the time? Sherlock checked the clock, and succeeded in hiding his startled reaction. Nine o'clock? He'd missed the whole morning. At least he wasn't bored anymore. He tried to change the subject from parents to his own unanswered questions.  
"Did you get my texts, John?"  
"I got one of them."  
"And the other?"  
"I don't know. I turned my phone off." Sherlock would have been frustrated and maybe hurt by this, had he had time before his brother began trying to start a fight. It ended with him and John pulling Mycroft out the door, and slamming it shut before he could get back in again. It didn't matter to Sherlock that he may have just broken one of Mycroft's fingers between door and frame.  
There was peace. A good kind of peace. At last.  
"Now how about that tea?" Any other time, John would have found it funny, but today he simply sighed. It was a deep, troubled sigh. There was still something on his mind. Sherlock reminded himself to ask when John got back with the drinks.  
"It's Josephine," John revealed as they sat opposite each other on sofa and chair.  
"What did she do? Try to give you highlights?"  
"No. How do you know about highlights? It doesn't matter anyway. She dumped me."  
"Oh no. You'll have to spend your time here again. How terrible for you."  
"Sherlock. She dumped me because of you."  
"Me?"  
"You. Why? Because she thinks I fancy you."  
"You don't?" He was just being silly. John usually ignored this, but as I've told you already, John wasn't quite in his right mind then. It resulted in John's hand slipping and tea all over Sherlock's lap. He shouted and jumped to his feet, and the hot water sunk through his clothes and burnt his skin. Cursing horribly, he left the room to change into dry clothes. Preferably, day clothes. When he came back, John was almost crying of laughter. Just a small thing such as that had cheered him up a bit. It was all he needed, a slight boost to regain his peace of mind.  
"That wasn't called for," complained Sherlock, sounding much like a little boy again. John thought it was called for. In fact, very much so.  
"It was boiling." John knew.  
"It wasn't very nice of you." John knew that as well. Sherlock sat down again, on the side of the sofa which didn't have a wet, hot stain seeping into it. Mrs. Hudson wasn't going to be very pleased. He glared at John across the coffee table, but John just carried on laughing at him. Slowly, ever so slowly, Sherlock began to see the funny side to it, so they laughed together until it was no longer amusing. John came over and sat next to him on the dry side of the sofa, searching for a case just as Sherlock had that night. As they did this, Sherlock looked up at John. As Sherlock looked up, so did John. They stared at each other, something locking their gazes. They couldn't look away. He didn't quite know what he was doing, or why he did it, but Sherlock found himself reaching out, and taking John by the back of the neck, pulling him close. His eyes slid shut as their lips pressed against each other. He could tell John felt panicked, but it was in a good way, so he continued until John calmed down. They both sank into the kiss, John feeling something Sherlock couldn't identify, and Sherlock feeling happier than he ever had for a good murder. He didn't want to let him go. John. His John. But he knew it wouldn't last, and it ended far too soon. John pushed him away, like he had only just realised what was happening.  
"What are you doing?" he asked, sounding worried, upset, angry, but just a tiny bit relieved about something.  
"Experiment," replied Sherlock, and went to fetch them some lunch.  
"Liar," muttered John, and picked up the newspaper which was so carelessly strewn on the coffee table. But Sherlock had heard. He let his mouth quaver slightly, then broke into a smile.  
He did care.  
His John. He cared.


End file.
